Experimental Archaeology and Textile Studies: Part 3

Here's what I did. I made a 16 thread tablet woven starting border. I made 144 warp threads. I cut one end of the warp thread loops to create 72 long threads. I took my needle and threaded each warp thread into the band individually. I sewed this long strip of warp threads onto my loom beam, then carefully separated the warps into front and back threads. 72 in the front, 72 in the back. I tied a loomweight to each bundle, resulting in two loomweights with 72 threads each. 

This was a clunky solution to the problem. I had to deal with an issue I hadn't considered, but now that it was a potential problem I needed to think about for the Stage 2 of the experiment, I had a chance to form a contingency plan for it. The important point here is that I still managed to arrive at the proper setup I required and everything was ready for heddling and weaving. 

Here's where experimental archaeology in academia is very tedious and tiring. If this parameter had been an essential variable, I would not be able to devise such a solution. If I was working with a scrap of textile that had this warp density and a tablet woven starting band, I would not be justified in 'faking' it. As it stands for this experiment, however, it gave me an excellent question to ask senior textile studies researchers what they thought but didn't otherwise impede my progress or time tabling.

The actual weaving process for the Stage 1 pre-experiment went very smoothly. The sample was about 6cm wide and about a meter long. And it looked like a linen seat belt. Lol. Maybe that idea is worth exploring later when the automobile industry looks into more sustainable construction materials for their electric cars... I used a wooden weaving sword to push the weft into place, but archaeologically, there is no evidence for this at my case study sites.  How did an Iron Age weaver push the weft into place? Is a tool even needed? Can an iron/bronze weaving sword do the job? Again, it's something to consider with future research because in this case, it does impact the cloth I was making. 

I finished the strip after a week of weaving 'in my spare time', cut it off the loom, and marveled at what I did. Here are some thoughts I had:

1. Is the heaviness of a loomweight important to consider by itself, or is it more important to consider how mass is distributed across the thickness more important? At the start of this experiment, it was generally understood that heavy loomweights = coarse fabrics, but a 0.7mm thread is about a fingering weight yarn.
2. If you can weave with heavy loomweights and linen threads, what happens if you use wool? Wool, as many of you know, is far more elastic than linen.
3. What is the upper bound of tension that a linen thread can handle which considers its gauge. In other words, how much tension can a 0.7mm linen single handle before it breaks?
4. How might people have use this very dense cloth? It turned out warp faced, but is that a desirable outcome for an Iron Age population?

And I had more thoughts afterwards too, but these were the ones that seemed most interesting to pursue for now. Because the Stage 1 experiment did what it needed to do to convince me that I had worked out the potential bugs, I could do some creative things with the finished piece. I washed some pieces and left others unwashed. I experimented with different hemming principles and finishing techniques. Here are those results:

This is the finished piece that was folded on itself to show how rigid and dense the cloth was.

Here is a close up of the finished weaving to illustrate how dense the warps are. You can barely see the wefts!

This is a steromicroscopic image (apologies for the quality) of one woven sample that was washed. Note how the yarns have flattened out slightly

This is another steromicroscopic image of the sample where I smoothed the surface with a polished stone. It is more flattened than the above washed sample and the resulting fabric is very soft to the touch.

On this sample, I smeared a stick of beeswax over the surface after the cloth was washed. I thought about how someone might try to waterproof a cloth after it was woven. This is one way to do that, another way might be to dip the cloth in hot beeswax and allow it to dry flat. Anyway, it has a very strange surface, like touching a candle!

I'm sure by now that you probably want more details about the experiment. I'm writing up the parameters of my experiment and the reasons why in more detail, along with the insights this experiment garnered, to be put into a publishable format for a journal (still deciding where to send it). So many nuanced decisions were made during this process and it does convey the complexity involved in textile production--no surprise there, but it does make it difficult to maintain transparency in my methods without having to write an entire book that describes my reasoning to the fullest extent possible. 

I have presented a 'lite' version of this experiment (Stage 2, actually) while I was in Edinburgh at the end of October and got some great feedback, including positive words from Susanna Harris (who helped examine the Must Farm textiles). I've also submitted an abstract to a student conference for experimental archaeology scheduled for March 2020 in Sheffield. I'm hoping that with all the feedback from these sources, I'll get the paper written and submitted to a journal by summer next year. I'm thinking of EXARC as my first choice, but I'm open to other options too.

That itself is another point to make. Publishing the results of experimental work in academia can be very time consuming as well. It could be a full year or so from the time I started the experiment until it is published, if I'm lucky. And here I am publishing some of the details on my blog inside of two months. Also, some of you may recall that I have talked about loomweights and warp-weighted experiments in the past. I did! I have a blog (Part 0, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) and video post about it as well. Check those out to see how far I have come with my research and experimental pursuits. I say some wrong things but getting access to academic material was very hard for me in those days.

I'll post more updates about the progress of this project as I make new videos and write up more about the Stage 2 of the experiments. Let me know what you guys thought about this content and whether you thought it was too long/short, too detailed/too vague. Thanks for reading!

Experimental Archaeology and Textile Studies: Part 2

With all the parameters outlined for the experiment design and the research question formatted to be a suitable hypothesis for the experiment, now came the hard part: how does it all 'work' together? Within every experiment, there are several small decisions made as part of this process. For all the preparation made prior to beginning, there will inevitably be contingencies you did not entirely account for.

For example, I decided to begin the warping process by making a tablet woven starting band, performed in the manner as seen by the Lapp weavers from Norway (Hoffman, 1974). To produce their wadmal and grene, they often wove a starting band while simultaneously integrating the warp. Not all weavers that Hoffman studied performed this method, but it does have archaeological presence in other parts of Europe. 

You can see in this photo how dense I needed the warp to be. The starting band also struggled to cope with the heaviness of the loomweight, but this is not a reflection on the experiment, just an issue with how to attach the warp to the loom.

I planned for as many of the possible contingencies I could think of that might go wrong. So, I made sure I had plenty of time to warp. I also had my assorted tools, including scissors, a needle, and my cup of water (for drinking!). I measured my warping pegs on my Kromski Harp loom (32") to confirm that I would get the correct length for my warp (side note: I have no idea how Iron Age people dealt with their warping problems, but this works for the experiment). My tablets (made of thick cardstock) were threaded with the same linen and stretched between two warping pegs. Then I began weaving and warping. After about 10 warps (or five times around the setup), I quickly realized that I wasn't going to achieve the correct density of warp threads I needed. Not even by a long shot!

I had a contingency for which I had no plan. I ended up unweaving everything, calling in my partner to help me (how much 'help' did any individual receive during Iron Age textile production?!), crying, and feeling hopeless. I was time pressed and didn't know how smoothly the rest of the experiment would go if I was already waylaid early on in the process. But, you adapt to adversity. I decided that no matter how I set up the tablet band, the way the cards turn prevents you from achieving a dense weaving setup. How can I get the density I wanted and also get the warp threads onto the loom? 

Let me back up to describe what I wanted the setup to be for the warp tension. After deciding on the loomweight shape and mass, and the spindle and spun yarn I needed, I had to calculate the warp tension for the setup. To keep the tension per thread no higher than 30g per thread, I determined that this would result in 72 threads per loomweight, or 144 threads for the woven fabric (tabby weave setup). This warp tension of 30g was determined by the Center for Textile Research (CTR) experiments to be a suitable upper limit for optimal weaving with wool. Why 72? The CTR experiments also determined that the starting width of your setup should be approximately equal to the total width of your loomweights (again, for optimal weaving). For a 2kg loomweight and a goal of 30g of tension per thread, that meant 72 threads (of about 0.9mm maximum gauge) would be ideal. This is tricky because there's a point where you can't get the warp threads so close that they either overlap or their fiber halo (more prominent in wool threads than in linen threads) causes them to stick and abrade as weaving commences. I spun a yarn that was about 0.7mm and bought a yarn that was similar in gauge (0.6-0.8mm). 

Here is my handspun linen that I used as a test. I photographed this with a camera mounted onto a stereomicroscope. (That's why it is a little fuzzy)

I decided that it would be good to start the experiment at this known upper limit when testing the linen because I could more easily link this back to wool and the other experiments conducted previously. But I was still stuck at this point where I needed to have a dense warp setup and didn't know how else to get the experiment going. I did the next best thing, which was 'fake' it. And I know that sounds a bit unscientific, but this particular problem was unimportant for the main question I was looking at since a starting band was not the focus. I had assumed that I should start with a tablet woven border, but there is no archaeological evidence for this in my case study sites. By removing this assumption, I could deal with the problem of getting the correct warp density I needed. 

Continued in Part 3!

Experimental Archaeology and Textile Studies: Part 1

This post is part of a series and I'm breaking it into sections for easier reading. If you have questions about a specific aspect, it'll also be easier to spot the information you want to know more about in a comment.

First, there are some important differences between the way I do experiments for Expertly Dyed and the way I must do experiments in academia. I'll get into the reasons why in a later episode and will post a video/blog explaining those differences specifically.

For now, I wanted to share Phase 1 of a two phase experiment I conducted during late August and part of September this year. Normally when I setup an experiment for Expertly Dyed, I apply a lot of craft knowledge and intuition and do a fair amount of 'let's see if this works'. I think many fellow crafters (of any sort, not just those who like textiles) will agree that this is often a legitimate way of exploring a craft. In fact, it is also a way that we explore the world as infants. We do this casually as we create recipes while standing at the stove and when we reach for the garlic granules, on a whim, we might substitute onion granules to see what that's like. We do these things naturally and implicitly and rarely do we ever consider our actions in a meta sort of way. 

Experimental archaeology in academia is not done this way. It has to be very well researched and there needs to be a lot of setup before you begin, or else you wind up digging yourself into a hole without a ladder and an imminent flood quickly approaches. Variables must be isolated and controlled so you can ensure that you can investigate the relationship between your independent and dependent variables. So, in my Phase 1, I produced a very skinny strip of linen fabric using heavy loomweights on my supervisor's warp-weighted loom. It is seemingly a silly step from a crafter's perspective because it seems completely irrelevant to your overarching goal, which is simply to weave something. I know that weavers will do tests to check their setup before they embark on a large project, just the same as a knitter will check their gauge before knitting a pattern that relies on fit. 

However, the nature of my experiments (which I will describe in a continuation of this series) required that I test my experiment parameters before I actually began the experiment. It was designed to be overly cautious because I did not have the luxury of time and I had my finances to consider as part of the experimental design. I used the case study sites that I’m researching as part of my PhD, which are Danebury and the Environs Sites. I selected these sites because they were all excavated by the same principle investigator (Barry Cunliffe) and well archived, and they could give me a sense of the ways textile tools were used and treated upon deposition within a small bounded landscape.

Here are a few considerations that I made for the initial design:

1.     I wanted to use the heavier loomweights from my dataset, which hovered around the 2000g mark. I am not aware of any published experiments where loomweights of this magnitude are used; many non-textile scholars have questioned whether such heavy loomweights could perform as such. Further, I opted to use a clay weight as my model since I had access to air dry clay, a suitable proxy, rather than chalk (which is the predominant material use for Danebury loomweights). I modelled the shape to be triangular, in part because this shape has been contested as whether it was suitable as a loomweight or as oven architecture. To be brief, clay triangular weights at the Danebury sites are sometimes found associated with collapsed ovens, leading to the contestation that they were originally used as loomweights. In reality, these objects (and other textile tools) are found in a variety of contexts so it isn't a very clear distinction. A previous proof-of-concept experiment I conducted at the start of 2018 suggested their utility on the warp-weighted loom. Taking this idea further, I reasoned that it would be appropriate to use this shape on the loom to determine its suitability for this function.

2.     As quick as it may be to spin yarn with a wheel, it is not as fast to spin with a spindle—at least for me. Because spinning wheels are a more modern invention, I had to use more simple methods. Instead of spinning a thousand yards or more of yarn with a spindle, I opted to use another proxy. My lovely Golding ring spindle is approximately the same size, shape, and mass as a Danebury spindle whorl. Then came the question of material choice. I settled on flax for two reasons: 1) it hasn’t been investigated as a fiber source for Iron Age Britain—because wool is often the only fiber sufficiently discussed for textile use during this period—and was likely still important in select cases during the Iron Age; and 2) it can tolerate approximately double the amount of tension that wool can support before breaking—this is important if I’m investigating new territory with heavy loomweights. So I spent about 15 hours spinning flax with my proxy spindle. I found a comparable unbleached, wet spun flax yarn of similar gauge online and used that as my test yarn.

3.     It is uncertain whether a long-handled comb was used during the process of weaving, and we have next-to-no evidence of a weaving sword during this time. However, any weaver will tell you that you need some way of packing the weft. For my Stage 1, I only used a weaving sword to pack the weft, but I did commission an antler comb that was modeled from a Danebury example for the Stage 2 experiment.

4.     Needles, again, are a complicated matter. Needles can be used for a variety of tasks and there is no clear evidence of their use at Danebury for textile production. Some look like they would be great for sewing or darning, while others are certainly not. I did use a steel needle that was of a similar length and width (a typical darning needle) to attach the warp threads to the loom and for experimenting with hemming techniques.

Here is one of the air dried clay loomweights that I modeled from an Iron Age equivalent.

With that, I had my basic setup for the Stage 1 part of my experiment. I am gliding over some of the reasons I chose what I did and why I think my decisions are valid for the point of my experiment, which is this: Can flax yarns spun with Danebury spindles be tensioned with heavy loomweights without breaking?

Continued in Part 2!

Warp-Weighted Loom Update #5: Making the Loom Weights

You know, there's a good reason to re-read some of the things I have lying around here. With my Spin-Off magazines, I typically use them as reference material once I've read them through once, and they're my go-to resource for pattern information (ie, going from unspun fiber to finished garment). But with all of my research into warp-weighted looms, it never occurred to me to also check out these magazines to see if it had mentioned anything in regards to these looms. As it would turn out, the Summer 2013 issue has such a mention.

As a reenactment and teaching project, the warp-weighted loom they used wasn't exactly like the kinds Iron Age peoples would have used...but it does give me some ideas about how to make a modern version. Iron Age looms built in Britain, for example, would have been made of hazel. The tree would have been about 4-5 years old, with a straight, sturdy trunk. They would have looked for a piece which had branch with a 45 degree fork near the top, then tried to find a second hazel trunk of similar proportions. After minimal trimming and drying, the loom would be ready for use. Well, there isn't any hazel in Korea, so I have to think and search a little longer to figure out how I'll build the structure. I'm not a carpenter, so perhaps I'll shoot for some grown-up Tinker Toys: pvc pipes.

While my brain grinds on that conundrum, I plan to make some loom weights. I was excited to learn more about how the spinners featured in the Spin-Off magazine made and set up their loom, but they didn't include such details. Now, sometimes it's easy to look at a simple tool and be able to make one just like it, and it does the job just fine. On the other hand, these simple tools have had a long history of use, so their ideal shape for the job they're intended for is fairly exact. With that in mind, I didn't want to spend time reinventing the wheel, so to speak, and a paper by Linda Mårtensson, Shape of Things: Understanding a Loom Weight, offered some help. The author created a series of experiments to test which kinds of set ups that Iron Age peoples might have utilized. This would help archaeologists determine the kinds of cloth people would have made when the only extant evidence are loom weights. Due to the experimental nature of this analysis, I have a well-defined starting point.

Iron Age Brits would use donut-shaped loom weights made of unfired clay. They were rough and clearly handmade, but I suspect they could make lots of weights at once if they wanted. There are some interesting details about the evolution of the loom weight as it traveled from Anatolia to Ireland, and you can read more about it in Prehistoric Textiles written by E.J.W. Barber (see below for full bibliography). The style of loom weight I'm going to attempt is the same style that Mårtensson used in one of her experiments, mainly since the dimensions and weight are also listed. This should make it easier for me to reconstruct the length of fabric she made, and hopefully it'll provide a safety net for the instance when I mess up (because I probably will). This is the paper clay I'm using:

My loom weights:

• 10cm circle
• 2cm diameter
• 200g wet weight
• 1-1.5cm hole

I'm shooting for a finished weight of around 160-180g, and 9cm by 1.8cm size of the weight. I made two weights to get started so I can make future adjustments as necessary. Two weights will help me figure out the average shrinkage for the paper clay. If this turns out as expected, I will need to make about 20 more of these weights in order to make a cloth 28cm wide. Whew.

So far, the weights have been drying for a day, but they still feel pretty wet. I should take some bets to see how long it'll take for them to dry completely. My best guess is that it'll take a full week. I should weigh them daily to actually know how long it takes. I'll post a follow-up on the weights when they're dry. I think I might spend another post talking about the history of loom weights (I'll take some interesting excerpts from Barber) since it's interesting from a weaver's point of view, but also from an archaeologist's point of view.

I've also updated my bibliography, in case you are keeping up with me:

Current Bibliography:

Albarella, U., Johnstone, C., & Vickers, K. (2008). The development of animal husbandry from the Late Iron Age to the end of the Roman period: a case study from South-East Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science, 35(7), 1828-1848.

Andresen, S. T., & Karg, S. (2011). Retting pits for textile fibre plants at Danish prehistoric sites dated between 800 bc and ad 1050. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 517-526.

Barber, E. J. W.(1991) Prehistoric Textiles. The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean. Princeton NJ.

Degano, I., Ribechini, E., Modugno, F., & Colombini, M. P. (2009). Analytical methods for the characterization of organic dyes in artworks and in historical textiles. Applied Spectroscopy Reviews, 44(5), 363-410.

Frei, K. M., Berghe, I. V., Frei, R., Mannering, U., & Lyngstrøm, H. (2010). Removal of natural organic dyes from wool–implications for ancient textile provenance studies. Journal of archaeological science, 37(9), 2136-2145.

Good, I. (2001). Archaeological textiles: a review of current research. Annual Review of Anthropology, 209-226.

Joosten, I., van Bommel, M. R., Hofmann-de Keijzer, R., & Reschreiter, H. (2006). Micro analysis on Hallstatt textiles: colour and condition. Microchimica Acta, 155(1-2), 169-174.

Mårtensson, L., NOSCH, M. L., & STRAND, E. A. (2009). Shape of things: understanding a loom weight. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 28(4), 373-398.

Rast-Eicher, A., & Bender Jørgensen, L. (2012). Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science.

Ryder, M. L. (1987). The evolution of the fleece. Scientific American, 256(1), 112-119.

Strand, E. A., Frei, K. M., Gleba, M., Mannering, U., Nosch, M. L., & Skals, I. (2010). Old Textiles—New Possibilities. European journal of archaeology, 13(2), 149-173.

Tomlinson, P. (1985). Use of vegetative remains in the identification of dyeplants from waterlogged 9th–10th century AD deposits at York. Journal of archaeological science, 12(4), 269-283.

Vanden Berghe, I., Gleba, M., & Mannering, U. (2009). Towards the identification of dyestuffs in Early Iron Age Scandinavian peat bog textiles. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36(9), 1910-1921.

Viklund, K. (2011). Flax in Sweden: the archaeobotanical, archaeological and historical evidence. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 509-515.

Warp Weighted Loom Update #4: Loom Weights

In the last update, I defined what I meant by 'Iron Age' so I could provide an approximate date range--and by extension, the geographical area--I was researching. The term can encompass an enormous range of dates, and describe lots of different people. Another thing that a slightly broader 'Iron Age' definition can provide is providing lots of different styles to try out, from anything between weaving patterns, fibers, and loom weight design. This brings me to my current update, which is in regards to loom weights.

Loom weights are the unassuming tools used for warp weighted looms, which have a pretty obvious function: adding tension to some of the weaving threads in order to facilitate the weaving of other yarns in between these weighted threads. Specifically, they add weight to the warp yarns to remove most of the slack an otherwise untensioned yarn would have inherently. This form of tensioning warp yarns was spread over a large geographical area, from Egypt to Ireland, traveling in a westerly direction. For a greater explanation of how the warp weighted loom came into existence and how the technology traveled geographically, read the lovely chapter regarding looms in E.J.W. Barber's book entitled Prehistoric Textiles.

In archaeological contexts, looms weights (and spindle whorls) are often found within the confines of houses, and occasionally they are found at kilns (not typically at industrial kilns). However, the association with these contexts doesn't given scientific proof that if things which look like loom weights are found in houses and at kilns, they are in fact not necessarily loom weights. Frustrating, I know. But it's important to find ways to confirm that these objects are mostly likely loom weights. As of now, the current amounts of research available to those inquiring about these objects is paltry. Textile studies is gaining ground with new research into identifying how the shape and weight of loom weights can influence the types of cloth produced, and using experimental archaeology to bring new insights to old artifacts.

In the paper Shape of Things: Understanding a Loom Weight (Martensson 2009), the author comments that her investigation into replicating warp weighted woven textiles using authentic tools is part of a pilot study--sometimes the answers present themselves in practice. This was an amazing read for me, since I secretly desire to be an experimental archaeologist (among other things). I will do my best to summarize the findings, but you should read this paper if you can find it--check your library.

The author found a correlation between the bottom line of the warp threads (where the loom weights are attached) being as wide or slightly wider than the top border and producing a length of fabric which is easy to weave and almost perfectly rectangular. Her other tests included using fewer warp weights or many warp weights and assessing the changes in width of the fabric when comparing the top to the bottom. More tests should be conducted to verify this research, which may have already occurred, just to further confidence levels in the greater archaeological community. The results of these experiments are so crucial to our understanding of the kinds of woven textiles people were making without requiring preservation of the actual textiles, and aids archaeologists who are trying to determine whether a community was producing cloth on a family-needs level or on a larger economic-needs level.

Some of the important minor epiphanies included the necessity that all of the loom weights hang at the same level to minimize the abrasion of warp threads as the counter-shed is created during the weaving process. This seems like a 'duh' moment, but as I've learned personally, sometimes doing an experiment helps us to understand why things are the way they are...like the time I stupidly warped my loom with a lace silk single. Those basic rules come back to bite us, but are otherwise archaeologically impossible to identify on the face.

The results from these experiments will certainly encourage archaeologists who find these kinds of artifacts to accurately record the weight of the loom weights, and their thickness. Based on this information and the documented empirical results, archaeologists can make preliminary deductions about the textile-producing capabilities of a group of people, thereby furthering our understanding of the entire site, not just the stuff which preserves. In addition, by recording the weight and thickness of the loom weights, textile experts can perform further experiments without needing to see the weights in person and record these characteristics.

For my personal goal of making a woven length of fabric with a warp weighted loom, this is practically a how-to guide for making the desired British Iron Age loom weights, and setting up the loom for an optimal weaving process. As I begin the next process, actually crafting the loom weights and building the loom frame, I'll flesh out more of Martensson's paper. I also hope that the next warp weighted loom update won't take so long to publish...I've been caught up with another paper that I'm writing, which will hopefully be ready to submit to a journal in July.
I've also updated my bibliography, in case you are keeping up with me:

Current Bibliography:

Albarella, U., Johnstone, C., & Vickers, K. (2008). The development of animal husbandry from the Late Iron Age to the end of the Roman period: a case study from South-East Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science, 35(7), 1828-1848.

Andresen, S. T., & Karg, S. (2011). Retting pits for textile fibre plants at Danish prehistoric sites dated between 800 bc and ad 1050. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 517-526.

Degano, I., Ribechini, E., Modugno, F., & Colombini, M. P. (2009). Analytical methods for the characterization of organic dyes in artworks and in historical textiles. Applied Spectroscopy Reviews, 44(5), 363-410.

Frei, K. M., Berghe, I. V., Frei, R., Mannering, U., & Lyngstrøm, H. (2010). Removal of natural organic dyes from wool–implications for ancient textile provenance studies. Journal of archaeological science, 37(9), 2136-2145.

Good, I. (2001). Archaeological textiles: a review of current research. Annual Review of Anthropology, 209-226.

Joosten, I., van Bommel, M. R., Hofmann-de Keijzer, R., & Reschreiter, H. (2006). Micro analysis on Hallstatt textiles: colour and condition. Microchimica Acta, 155(1-2), 169-174.

Mårtensson, L., NOSCH, M. L., & STRAND, E. A. (2009). Shape of things: understanding a loom weight. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 28(4), 373-398.

Rast-Eicher, A., & Bender Jørgensen, L. (2012). Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science.

Ryder, M. L. (1987). The evolution of the fleece. Scientific American, 256(1), 112-119.

Strand, E. A., Frei, K. M., Gleba, M., Mannering, U., Nosch, M. L., & Skals, I. (2010). Old Textiles—New Possibilities. European journal of archaeology, 13(2), 149-173.

Tomlinson, P. (1985). Use of vegetative remains in the identification of dyeplants from waterlogged 9th–10th century AD deposits at York. Journal of archaeological science, 12(4), 269-283.

Vanden Berghe, I., Gleba, M., & Mannering, U. (2009). Towards the identification of dyestuffs in Early Iron Age Scandinavian peat bog textiles. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36(9), 1910-1921.

Viklund, K. (2011). Flax in Sweden: the archaeobotanical, archaeological and historical evidence. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 509-515.

Warp Weighted Loom Update #3: Defining the Iron Age

In my last update, I talked about the wool that would have been available to Iron Age people in Europe. I also mentioned that textiles are very rare, and because of the rarity of archaeological samples, we don't really know for sure what type of sheep they used, only that the wool has undergone dramatic changes over time. Some information about wool has been discovered through the scientific testing of sheep skins found contemporaneously, such as the micron count of each part of the sheep (ie, prime fleece, leg wool, etc.).

I've mentioned the "Iron Age" several times now, but I haven't said what I'm calling the "Iron Age." Generally speaking, tool technology advances into subsequently sophisticated tools to make life easier and warfare more deadly. But tool technology doesn't begin everywhere in the world at the same time, and in some cases, two or more tool technologies will be used simultaneously in various parts of the world. And even one a group of people began using a new tool technology, they didn't completely give up on their previous tool technology (can you imagine how ludicrous it would have been for everyone to switch over to cellular phones in 1993 and get rid of house phones?). While most of us know a few details about the Iron Age in general (ahem, they used iron tools), it's important to know from which Iron Age I'm gleaning information.

The Iron Age I will be referring to throughout my research is in Central Europe (Germany, France, Spain, etc.), Western Europe (Britain, Scotland, and Ireland, etc.), and Northern Europe (Scandinavia). In this part of the world, the Iron Age arrived about a thousand or so years later than it began in the Near East (Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India). If we travel from east to west, the Iron Age began in Central Europe around 850BCE, in Western Europe around 800BCE, and in Northern Europe around 400 (or 300) BCE. The end dates for each aren't quite so clear cut. The indigenous populations in Central, Western, and Northern Europe did not write historical accounts, so much of what we know about them comes from outside contemporaries. The Roman invasion introduced the indigenous people to a historical tradition (and Christianity) and were they were flooded with Roman culture. Rome conquered many cultural traditions in this area of the world, but some, like the Picts in Scotland (around 100BCE), retained their autonomy from the Empire. Generally speaking, the Iron Age 'ended' in Central and Western Europe by the middle of the 5th century, approximately at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. In Northern Europe, the Iron Age didn't 'end' until as late as the Norman Conquest of England (1066CE).

The Iron Age followed the Bronze Age, and was a critical period of cultural development across the board. Iron tools proved to be more durable and could hold a sharp edge for longer, but most significantly, iron can be forged. The technology used for making bronze items is through a casting method, where the hot metal is poured into a mold and allowed to cool. It could be honed to a sharp edge. Bronze is a softer metal than iron, so it couldn't maintain it's edge for nearly as long. If a bronze weapon chipped or broke, it must be melted and recast again. The differences in smithing techniques for bronze and iron were that iron required a very hot furnace and a specialized annealing process. During this transition period, iron was more used for decorative items than for weapons.

Since the information archaeologists have managed to piece together for any one particular area, temporally and spatially, is rather meager, it behooves me to utilize information from a generalized Iron Age period of 'western' Europe. Textile fabrics do not preserve well, and are most commonly found in environments like bogs, ice, salt (like table salt) mines, and metallic salts (salts produced as metals decay in acidic soil). Because of these specific environments, preserved textiles are contextual outliers--meaning, they are one of a kind given the time period in which they date, and anomalies given that there may only be a few textiles found in a certain geographic region. Inferences must be made about the type/appearance/etc. of textiles in surrounding areas, and the evolution of textile types/appearances/etc. in a single area.

For example, let's say part of a tunic is found in modern-day Paris, France, which dates to 125 +/-25 BCE, and is dyed with woad. We can infer that these people had an advanced understanding of natural dyeing and we can know this by studying modern societies who still use natural dyeing techniques. We can also infer that people in the same area probably knew how to dye with woad as well, especially if the plant is present in that area. For the most part, this assessment would be accepted as a highly probable statement--but that doesn't mean all groups that existed in the same area knew how to dye with woad. Unfortunately, though people buried their dead, they didn't also bury time capsules...we have to go with what we find in the ground.

I'll be using the information about a generalized 'Iron Age' to guide me on my quest to make a warp-weighted loom and use it to weave a scarf (let's shoot for realism). By pulling information from various parts of the western Iron Age world, I'll give myself a better chance of understanding the types of cloth which were made and deciding whether people were making cloth for specific purposes or for mass production. I'll go into those details in my next update, where I will talk specifically about what I've learned regarding loom weights and how to set up a warp to produce the best piece of fabric.

In these updates, I've been trying to merge two different fields of study together, that of archaeology and textile studies, and I hope I am doing them justice. If you feel like I missed something or that I got something wrong, please let me know! I am a master in neither field, but through these personal efforts, I hope to gain some level of mastery of both. In addition to grad school (which should be starting for me this summer), I'll be continuing on with this project until it's completed, no matter how long that takes. With ya'll there to read and offer support, I think I can make it through this daunting task. Thank you for reading about my journey!

I've also updated my bibliography, in case you are keeping up with me:

Current Bibliography:

Albarella, U., Johnstone, C., & Vickers, K. (2008). The development of animal husbandry from the Late Iron Age to the end of the Roman period: a case study from South-East Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science, 35(7), 1828-1848.

Andresen, S. T., & Karg, S. (2011). Retting pits for textile fibre plants at Danish prehistoric sites dated between 800 bc and ad 1050. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 517-526.

Degano, I., Ribechini, E., Modugno, F., & Colombini, M. P. (2009). Analytical methods for the characterization of organic dyes in artworks and in historical textiles. Applied Spectroscopy Reviews, 44(5), 363-410.

Frei, K. M., Berghe, I. V., Frei, R., Mannering, U., & Lyngstrøm, H. (2010). Removal of natural organic dyes from wool–implications for ancient textile provenance studies. Journal of archaeological science, 37(9), 2136-2145.

Good, I. (2001). Archaeological textiles: a review of current research. Annual Review of Anthropology, 209-226.

Joosten, I., van Bommel, M. R., Hofmann-de Keijzer, R., & Reschreiter, H. (2006). Micro analysis on Hallstatt textiles: colour and condition. Microchimica Acta, 155(1-2), 169-174.

Rast-Eicher, A., & Bender Jørgensen, L. (2012). Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science.

Ryder, M. L. (1987). The evolution of the fleece. Scientific American, 256(1), 112-119.

Strand, E. A., Frei, K. M., Gleba, M., Mannering, U., Nosch, M. L., & Skals, I. (2010). Old Textiles—New Possibilities. European journal of archaeology, 13(2), 149-173.

Tomlinson, P. (1985). Use of vegetative remains in the identification of dyeplants from waterlogged 9th–10th century AD deposits at York. Journal of archaeological science, 12(4), 269-283.

Vanden Berghe, I., Gleba, M., & Mannering, U. (2009). Towards the identification of dyestuffs in Early Iron Age Scandinavian peat bog textiles. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36(9), 1910-1921.

Viklund, K. (2011). Flax in Sweden: the archaeobotanical, archaeological and historical evidence. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 509-515.

Warp-Weighted Loom Update #2: Picking out the Wool

In my last post, I talked about finding some sources for warp-weighted looms. I talked about what archaeologists have managed to dig up, which isn't much, and I touched briefly on some of the problems associated with the technology of determining dyes/mordants/etc. used on prehistoric textiles. I also spent some time discussing how textiles can fit within a wider archaeological context, but because of their rarity, the field of textiles is vastly understudied. Enthusiastic spinners and weavers who wish to reproduce ancient textiles with similar tools and constraints contribute a great deal to the archaeological understanding of how these ancient textiles were made. 

So let's talk about the wool. That's tricky. Most of the professional articles I've read don't list specific wools, mainly because they can't isolate a specific breed. Even if they could, the types of wool that existed a thousand or more years ago just don't exist anymore. Wool has undergone evolution by the hands of their human companions, so the wool of today is often very different than the wool of 100 CE.

Let's take an example of a recent paper I read ("The development of animal husbandry from the Late Iron Age to the end of the Roman period: a case study from South-East Britain") about the intensification of animal husbandry. During the Romano-British period in England (roughly mid first century CE), Romans stationed in "barbaric" territory imported large quantities of goods, and among them, cattle. They were decidedly there for the long haul, so instead of importing beef all of the time, they were going to introduce their cattle (which had already undergone many generations of selective breeding) to the local cattle. In just a few generations, the size of each animial grew significantly.

Similar things were happening with sheep. There was a time when sheep shed their wool naturally, and had two (or more) distinct wool characteristics. There was an outer coat, typically made of coarse hair and kemp fibers, and an inner coat, typically soft and warm fibers. Both coats were shed, but at different times. If you saw a sheep molting their inner coat, you knew it was time to pluck the fine wool while avoiding the coarse hairs. Cashmere goatherds go through a similar process when removing the inner coat from the molting animal.

This inner coat on sheep used to be extremely fine, on the order of cashmere or angora. But with the increased demand for wool, harvesting requirements changed. Collecting wool from animals who might be shedding at different times is labor intensive as it must be done over a longer period of time. In the instance where several sheep are shedding simultaneously and there aren't enough hands to pluck wool, some of the shedded wool will be lost on shrubs, to the birds, and elsewhere. In addition, kemp/coarse hairs needed to be removed prior to processing, and only the inner coat was usable for most of their needs. This equated to a lot of labor for not a lot of reward. Environmental, social, and economic pressures may have lead to the changes we see in modern wool.

Selective breeding took over, and eventually animals were created which had a more uniform fleece (though not as soft as before) and continuous growth without molting. There are so few sheep these days which have a dual fleece of the same qualities that sheep had a thousand years ago, and scientists even argue that the so-called primitive sheep today are still not free of human tampering. Be that as it may, it does tell me that I'll have some trouble finding a fleece exactly like the fleeces available in the Iron Age. Thankfully, there are some papers available which have taken micron counts of fibers used in textiles and furs, so I can use that information to find a suitable substitute.

I've given some thought to my first warp-weighted loom project. I think I should stick with something simple, and something I'll use in the end. Samples are great, and I do a lot of sampling (Facebook fans know that I do a lot of sampling!), but to get a really good idea of what I'm doing and what I'm in for, I need to go all the way and make a completed item. I'm going to start off with a simple woven scarf out of a prime merino fleece I bought last year. You may call me crazy using such a soft fleece for this, but Iron Age people used fine fleeces for their textiles too. The majority of the fleece used was in the 15-25 micron range, so using a 21 micron merino fleece isn't completely nuts. :) For fun, I did a couple of samples, mixing the merino with alpaca and cashmere in 50/50 blends. First up, merino/alpaca:

This is a wonderful combination, but I'm concerned that the alpaca might weaken the strength of the yarn. I think I need to pay more attention to the crimp and twist of my fleece and yarn, so although this is wonderfully soft (and I love the heathered gray), it probably won't be practical for this project. Nevertheless, it's on the backburner and might become some wonderful socks one day (I do have 6 pounds of this fleece, afterall).

This one is decidedly for fun. Here is the merino/cashmere blend:

I was thinking that cashmere might add some extra fineness that was present in fleeces used for Iron Age textiles, but I'm not convinced it's the right type of fineness. It does have crimp, but is it enough to get a strong yarn? I might just hang onto the cashmere and make a knitted lace scarf for the dead of winter which I think is coming, but never comes.

In the next update, I'll talk briefly about what I mean when I say 'Iron Age,' since it matters where I'm talking about geographically. For this project, I am trying to get a general sense of 'Iron Age' technology and materials, so I may be combining information gleaned from Iron Age periods across the UK and the surrounding areas. I've also updated the bibliography, just in case others have a copy elsewhere.

Current Bibliography:

Albarella, U., Johnstone, C., & Vickers, K. (2008). The development of animal husbandry from the Late Iron Age to the end of the Roman period: a case study from South-East Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science, 35(7), 1828-1848.

Andresen, S. T., & Karg, S. (2011). Retting pits for textile fibre plants at Danish prehistoric sites dated between 800 bc and ad 1050. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 517-526.

Degano, I., Ribechini, E., Modugno, F., & Colombini, M. P. (2009). Analytical methods for the characterization of organic dyes in artworks and in historical textiles. Applied Spectroscopy Reviews, 44(5), 363-410.

Joosten, I., van Bommel, M. R., Hofmann-de Keijzer, R., & Reschreiter, H. (2006). Micro analysis on Hallstatt textiles: colour and condition. Microchimica Acta, 155(1-2), 169-174.

Rast-Eicher, A., & Bender Jørgensen, L. (2012). Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science.

Ryder, M. L. (1987). The evolution of the fleece. Scientific American, 256(1), 112-119.

Strand, E. A., Frei, K. M., Gleba, M., Mannering, U., Nosch, M. L., & Skals, I. (2010). Old Textiles—New Possibilities. European journal of archaeology, 13(2), 149-173.

Vanden Berghe, I., Gleba, M., & Mannering, U. (2009). Towards the identification of dyestuffs in Early Iron Age Scandinavian peat bog textiles. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36(9), 1910-1921.

Viklund, K. (2011). Flax in Sweden: the archaeobotanical, archaeological and historical evidence. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 509-515.

Warp-Weighted Loom Update #1: Finding the Sources

I'm not going for accuracy here, I just want to get a really good idea of what I'm doing with this warp weighted loom project. But it's good to talk briefly about the sources. I've read other blogs which have attempted such projects (though, they were going for more than just accuracy since most of them already have mad weaving skills), and they post their progress just like I'm about to do. However, most of the time at least, they list no sources for their information. No, I'm not the bibliography police--I'm just curious which sources they used so that I can use them. No need to reinvent the wheel here.

So that got me thinking: Why don't I list a bibliography here so others can find out about the information I used? And further, I can offer my reasoning for using/not using certain sources (probably in a future update when I have a good working bibliography). Plus, it'll keep me on track. And motivated. It isn't hyper critical for me to get everything "right" on the first try, but it's good to start out with a basic idea.

First, let's talk about the archaeological record. Finding well-preserved textiles which can tell us something about the craft, decoration, use, dye, and components (like wool/plant/metallic/etc.) are rare, so when they are found, papers are written about them. The biggest problem facing archaeologists who want to study ancient textiles (besides the problem of rarity) is the context. To determine the context, you often need to destroy the artifact. Great, but what do I mean by "context?"

In simple terms, I'm talking about all of the other stuff you can determine by examining something. For example, if you look at the dyes used on a textile from a specific site, the dye can tell you something about the dyeing technology, importation of dyes (or dyed items), and regional use of certain dyestuffs. If you're looking at a textile which has been dyed with dyestuffs found locally and in abundance, the archaeologists can make inferences about that site. The archaeologist can use this information to begin forming the context of a site, usually with the help of other types of artifacts and features (features are things like walls and houses). Let's say that there is just one family-sized house and adult sheep bones found in refuse pits to add to our example.

Given this information, the archaeologist begins to paint a picture of a small farmstead where people were raising sheep for subsistence (ie, just enough to support a family with very little surplus possibilities) and using the local flora to add flair to their textiles. This is essential for archaeologists to get a rounded view of the people who lived here before, and to prevent contextual biases like those frequently made in the 19th century. Unfortunately, in order to do this, archaeologists often need to destroy the textile to extract the information needed.

There are some ways to determine dyestuffs and fiber type without destroying the artifact, that's true, but the accuracy decreases and it won't account for surface changes (ie, the presence of dirt, abrasions, etc.). During the experimentation process of my master's dissertation, I used visible spectrophotometry to determine absorption curves of one dyestuff (cochineal) with various mordants (the substance that binds the dye to the fiber). The point of that sentence is to tell you that even though I used only one type of dyestuff, the absorption curves were different given different mordants. Thus, this isn't a reliable method for determining dyestuffs.

Destructive methods are generally employed to determine the exact (or nearly so) dye used, and possibly its origin (in the case of several species within the same genera), to understand how people led their lives in prehistory. This discussion of dyes is just one aspect that archaeologists investigate, and it isn't the only investigation which requires destruction of the sample to obtain vital information.

So let's bring this all together. Textiles are rare. Archaeologists tend to preserve as much of the artifact as possible for future study (and conservation) while doing their research. The study of ancient textiles is often destructive, which leads to textile research being understudied. As a result, not much information exists about textiles in specific regions/time periods. In the end, archaeologists don't use textile information regularly to help determine context of archaeological sites. Textile research may not be crucial for understanding and interpreting most archaeological sites, but it adds a dimension to the daily lives of these people we don't know much about, and finally, isn't it all about rebuilding a picture of the past through excavation?

Okay, don't get ahead of yourself; here's what I'll do. What I am able to find I will document here on this blog. The articles and websites I list will be pertinent to hobby weavers, spinners, and dyers, and extremely useful for those out there who are like me in wanting to reproduce archaically woven textiles.

Also, I'm sorry I wasn't so brief. There's a lot to say about this project. In the next update, I'll continue on with finding sources for wool and loom building (and I'll definitely post more pictures). Thanks for reading!

Current Bibliography:

Andresen, S. T., & Karg, S. (2011). Retting pits for textile fibre plants at Danish prehistoric sites dated between 800 bc and ad 1050. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20(6), 517-526.

Joosten, I., van Bommel, M. R., Hofmann-de Keijzer, R., & Reschreiter, H. (2006). Micro analysis on Hallstatt textiles: colour and condition. Microchimica Acta, 155(1-2), 169-174.

Rast-Eicher, A., & Bender Jørgensen, L. (2012). Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science.

Ryder, M. L. (1987). The evolution of the fleece. Scientific American, 256(1), 112-119.

Strand, E. A., Frei, K. M., Gleba, M., Mannering, U., Nosch, M. L., & Skals, I. (2010). Old Textiles—New Possibilities. European journal of archaeology, 13(2), 149-173.

Vanden Berghe, I., Gleba, M., & Mannering, U. (2009). Towards the identification of dyestuffs in Early Iron Age Scandinavian peat bog textiles. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36(9), 1910-1921.